Black Leopard, Red Wolf runs on the same logic we find in comic books, where heroes fight each other first and then figure out why they are fighting each other after the fact. I used the word allies above, but truculent Tracker is just as likely to fight against the members of his fellowship as he is to fight with them.

In his detective-quest, Tracker partners with a number of strange allies: a talkative giant (who tells us repeatedly that he is not a giant), an anti-witch who places charms on Tracker, a duplicitous Moon Witch, a skin-shedding warrior-spy, a sandy-colored soldier from an alien land, a surly archer, a very smart buffalo, and more, more, more. An explanation of exactly how and why the child is so important is deferred repeatedly indeed, James’s novel is as much a detective story as it is a fantasy. The central quest of Black Leopard, Red Wolf is for Tracker to find and recover a missing child of great importance. Set against the backdrop of two warring states, the North Kingdom and the South Kingdom, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the story-or stories, really-of Tracker, a man “with a nose” who can track down pretty much anyone (as long as he’s got the scent). Marlon James’s novel Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a postmodern fantasy that takes place in medieval sub-Saharan Africa.

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